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Trevor Evans, 17, was expelled from West Kirby Grammar School, on the Wirral, in October last year amid rumours that he and his then girlfriend had had intercourse in a store cupboard and a school lavatory. But an independent tribunal has thrown out the school’s decision, ruling that it failed to investigate the claims properly [...]

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In London, this figure rises to 35 per cent of households. Among young couples in Britain, the proportion is 38 per cent. Nearly one in three parents think their home is too small, according to the study of 2,000 adults by property website FindaProperty.com. Research also found that of the million people in Britain who [...]

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A couple in their fifties who looked after a baby girl for a year have been told they are too old to legally adopt the child. The foster parents in Whitley, Berkshire had looked after the child to help out her 17-year-old natural mother and had raised the little girl since last March. But after [...]

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Even if the arch feminist Germaine Greer did once dismiss Cherie Blair as a mere “concubine”, women’s rights have always been close to the heart of the former prime minister’s wife. Now, however, Mrs Blair, who runs a foundation for women, says it is a “myth” that members of her sex can ever have it [...]

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Children whose mothers are more attentive during infancy go on to develop more nerve cells in their hippocampus, a region of the brain which plays a key role in memory and emotion, researchers found. Although the findings do not prove that the mothers’ behaviour caused the improved brain size, measured during later childhood, they suggest [...]

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An adventurous, fit teenager died of meningitis within hours of complaining of a headache. Fit and healthy Welsh student Hannah Gwilliam, 19, was her ‘usual bubbly self’ in college but became ill just hours after arriving home. Health chiefs today confirmed Hannah died of the meningococcal group B strain of the deadly brain virus. Hannah’s [...]

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For millions of young people, the Bank of Mum and Dad was the only way to get on to the property ladder. But even that has hit upon hard times – and granny and grandpa have stepped into the breach, a report reveals. It said rising numbers of young people struggling to buy their first [...]

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Johnson & Johnson has recalled thousands of tubes of its Aveeno Baby Calming Comfort Lotion after a sample contained too much bacteria. Tests by the Food and Drug Administration found a batch of the lotion contained more of a form of naturally-occurring bacteria than specifications allow. Around 2,200 bottles of the lotion – with lot [...]

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If giving birth to a 13 pound baby isn’t enough to earn a title of Wonder Woman after labor, how about doing it au naturale? An Iowa woman delivered her second son to weigh over 11 pounds Thursday after opting to forgo a cesarean section as well as pain killers. At precisely 13 pounds and [...]

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A second soldier has been sent home from the frontline after it was discovered he was underage. Matthew Goodridge was serving near Basra in Iraq when his mother, Alison Booth, sent him an 18th birthday present. His superiors in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers questioned him after discovering that she had written to complain [...]

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After scandals such as Baby P, many social workers feel criticised from all sides. The difficult nature of their job is revealed as the BBC is given unprecedented access to the Bristol child protection team. It was newly qualified social worker Susanne’s first case. Three-year-old Toby could not speak and still had to use a [...]

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A teenager who was planning her own funeral is enjoying a new lease of life thanks to a life-saving double lung transplant. Casey Blunstone,16, was told by doctors that she had just days to live as cystic fibrosis had caused her lung function to drop to dangerous levels. For the past ten years she had [...]

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Teenagers as young as 13 are being offered a smartphone app that allows them to track down free condoms. The iPhone app – which has cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds – works using satellite positioning to plot a user’s location on a map. It then provides directions to the nearest health clinic, pharmacy or [...]

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Questions surround the death of a 17-year-old Colorado girl who jumped out of a moving car and was struck dead by oncoming traffic on a major highway. Catrina Fox was sitting in the passenger seat as her mother drove on a Colorado highway when she suddenly opened the door and jumped out in the very [...]

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Pseudomonas bacteria like those which killed four babies have been found in a third Northern Irish hospital. It was detected in water outlets in the neo-natal intensive care unit of the Ulster Hospital near Belfast. None of the babies in the unit has tested positive for the infection but screening is ongoing. Separate outbreaks of [...]

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A generation of children are becoming living zombies from sleep deprivation due to computer game addiction. That is the view of a charity which says it has serious concerns over an increasing number of a young computer gamers ‘stoned’ from sleep deprivation. Social workers at Wing South West said the result was that the social [...]

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Parents who set up their own businesses would be in line for a £900-a-year tax break under plans for this year’s Budget being considered by George Osborne. The Chancellor is looking at extending childcare vouchers, which help 700,000 working parents save on the cost of a childminder or nursery, to self-employed mothers and fathers. The [...]

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Students at a Pennsylvania school have been told to leave their ugg boots at home after they caught one too many students hiding cell phones in them. Administrators at Pottsdam Middle School made the controversial decision because students were secretly using their cell phones during class to text and post messages on Facebook. The school’s [...]

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The children have left home, the house is too big, the nesting years are over. What happens next? Do you set off together and roam the world, buy into a retirement development, or help the young get a foot on the ladder? The older generation own most of the property equity in this country, giving [...]

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My teenage son is at that monosyllabic grunt stage and refuses to engage in conversation about anything. I had a brother so I know he will eventually get over it, but it’s driving my husband mad. He thinks it’s rude, and that we’re spoiling him by letting him get away with it. Who’s right: me [...]

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When a hooded mugger saw pocket-sized Kirsty Foord he no doubt expected easy-pickings. At just 4ft 11in tall and with bright pink hair the student was an obvious target for the thug. But the teenage bully was soon to be taught a valuable life lesson – never judge a book by its cover. The attacker [...]

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A woman jumped to her death from a cliff top because she feared she was developing the dementia she had seen take a grip of her late mother. Unable to face becoming a burden on her family, Judith Iles, 60, wrote a suicide note to her husband and son which read: ‘So sorry – I’m [...]

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The parents of a newborn baby left with horrific injuries and fractures all over her body walked free from court today, despite admitting child cruelty charges. The unnamed infant was just 23 days old when doctors discovered she had suffered multiple breaks to her legs, knees, ribs, right wrist and right hip. MRI scans showed [...]

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Thirteen-month-old Imad Aleeyan, who has six teeth, was found chewing on the head of the 12 inch snake by his mother, who alerted the neighbourhood with her screams. “I was making his milk and I looked over and saw he had a snake in his mouth,” said his mother, Ghadir Aleeyan who lives in the [...]

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She strikes a pose for the camera, her bright eyes shining and a smile playing on her lips. A favourite picture from her family’s album shows Alisa Dmitrijeva a few weeks after she arrived in Britain to start a new life. The pretty Latvian teenager was excited about her future. She enrolled at a college [...]

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It’s Wednesday afternoon on a week without children and I’m working at the kitchen table. In front of me are three mugs of tea in various stages of neglect, an empty yoghurt pot, some tangerine peel and, mystifyingly, a single sock. There are several teetering piles of papers, a toolbox, a jar of face cream [...]

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Little Orla Docherty finally gave a cheeky little grin today after doctors healed an infected birthmark that left her unable to smile. The 16-month-old was born with a birthmark on her lower lip, which became infected because of its location, causing the toddler agonising pain. The red blotch became so unbearable that Orla had to [...]

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The Council of Fashion Designers of America has issued strict new guidelines that will prevent the use of models under the age of 16 at New York Fashion Week. The U.S. industry body, of which Diane von Furstenberg is President, is insisting that its members demand ID for all models ahead of catwalk shows. But [...]

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When they agreed to take part in a series about troubled teenagers, hosted by fashion guru Gok Wan, it’s hard to see what brothers Ben and Michael Watson could have hoped to gain. For their problems were in a completely different league to the acne/bullying/unrequited love ones that normally plague teenage years. In short, their [...]

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Peering at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test, Debbie Hughes reached for her reading glasses to check that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Fast approaching her 53rd birthday, she thought she was too old to conceive naturally and, besides, she was on the Pill. It was impossible, she thought, her stomach ‘lurching with [...]

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Well flay me senseless with birch twigs in a banya if I’m not (yet again) out of synch with the real world. To join the list of all the other things I, rather unfairly, haven’t got – energy, toned upper forearms, a completed tax return – I must now add a househusband. Over the past [...]

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Parents are being wrongly accused of abuse because of an undiagnosed  epidemic of rickets among very young children, scientists claim. Cases of the illness, which is caused by a lack of vitamin D, have soared in the past decade due to poor diet and lifestyle habits. In very young children, the condition leads to their [...]

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Experts say that a mum who nurtures and cares for her kids can set them up in good health right, even if they’ve grown up in grinding poverty. Research has already proven that kids who grow up in poor areas are more likely to suffer from chronic illness in adulthood, but US researchers were puzzled [...]

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Housekeeping and exercise are both chores that, though essential, can be tedious to carry out on a regular basis. But one man believes he has found a solution that is both time-effective and fun: combining the two to create a cleaning regime that doubles as a workout. Steve Markovich, 57, from Crescent Springs, Kentucky, has [...]

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As a toddler, my son Henry used to sleep in a nightie, after I gave up on trying to wrestle him into pyjamas. Later, he took to calling himself Stephanie, Jean, Olive or, most frequently, Miss Argentina. His favourite game was wearing his elder sisters’ sequin party dresses while running his imaginary boutique ‘Slinx’ or [...]

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Step aside Justin Bieber, Twilight Saga and bubblegum-coloured lipstick. The latest round-up of teen crazes is far shadier – and makes for some rather less innocuous reading. Children as young as 13 are experimenting with drugs and alcohol in guises that belie their seriousness and make them easy contraband at school, say experts. Anderson Cooper [...]

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On last night’s episode of Toddlers and Tiaras, the mothers of two contestants in Hot Springs, Arkansas, revealed that they had put their daughters on diets to improve their chances of winning the beauty pageants. Both eight-year-old Ever Rose and four-year-old Adriana were made to follow strict regimes set by their parents so that they [...]

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For millions of young people, the Bank of Mum and Dad was the only way to get on to the property ladder. But even that has hit upon hard times – and granny and grandpa have stepped into the breach, a report reveals. It said rising numbers of young people struggling to buy their first [...]

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Holden, 40, gave birth to her second child, Hollie Rose, on Monday after going into labour a month early and spent three days in a critical condition. The actress and television presenter is now stable after being treated in an intensive care unit for three days but is expected to take a while to recover [...]

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Harriet Murphy, 19, hatched the plan with her lover, Liviar Aziz, in order to procure £300 from her long-term boyfriend, which the pair then spent in a casino. Victim John Hulton immediately paid the ransom after falling for the “devious scheme”, the Old Bailey heard. Murphy has two half siblings from her mother Karen Richardson’s [...]

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Signs of autism can be detected in six-month-old babies by measuring their brain activity, research has shown. Scientists say the test could help identify infants most at risk of developing the disorder later in life. Autism, a lifelong developmental disability that impairs a person’s ability to connect socially and communicate, is not officially diagnosed until [...]

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Seb Coe today said it was “an anomaly” that expectant parents were being told their babies will be refused entry to the Olympic Games unless they have a ticket. The London 2012 chairman stressed that cut-price tickets for children had been sold and added that “we want to be a family friendly organisation”. He told [...]

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Ms Franklin’s 37-year old son Simon Ellis was a passenger in a car that crashed into a wall in Great Wenham, near Ipswich, on June 26, 1992, when he was just 18. He lost the use of his arms and legs, suffered brain damage and two skull fractures. Doctors said he would never talk again. [...]

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A mother wanted on counterfeiting charges has been accused of leaving her five-year-old son alone in a hotel room so she could gamble. Xiao Xu Wu was charged on Wednesday with risk of injury to a minor after her son called 911 and said he was left alone at a Mohegan Sun Casino in New [...]

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What is the most provocative headline you can think of? The Wall Street Journal came close in January last year when it ran a book extract under the banner: “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior.” Oh dear God. The only women who should call themselves mother superior are nuns. The extract was by Amy Chua, a [...]

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I’ve spotted them at the school gates, looking dazed and slightly dishevelled as they hand over packed lunches and field trip slips. Traces of glue stick to their fingers from a late night spent building a pyramid out of cereal packets for a class project. The stay-at-home dads used to be a rare sight but [...]

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A 17-year-old soldier lied about his age to so he could fight the Taliban on the frontline in Afghanistan – despite not being old enough to play war game Call of Duty. Adam Wilkie was three months off the age threshold for frontline duty – and too young to buy the 18-rated computer game – [...]

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The number of househusbands has tripled over the past 15 years, new figures have revealed. Last year, 62,000 men were classed as ‘economically inactive’ while their partners go out to work, compared to just 21,000 in 1996. This follows on from a recent survey which also found that there are 1.4million men across the UK [...]

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A teenage girl who has eaten almost nothing else apart from chicken nuggets for 15 years has been warned by doctors that the junk food is killing her. Stacey Irvine, 17, has been hooked on the treats since her mother bought her some at a McDonald’s restaurant when she was two. Shocked doctors learned of [...]

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A family are facing eviction after their neighbours complained about the noise of their two-year-old daughter – comparing her cries to the sound of a revving motorbike. Mother Nicola Baylis, 23, and her partner Tim Richold, 34, have been told they will be removed from their home unless their two-year-old daughter Skye keeps quiet. Neighbours [...]

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